Six months of the National Polecat Survey
Six months have passed since the start of the National Polecat Survey, and Vincent Wildlife Trust (VWT) has been inundated with sightings of polecats! A big thank you to all the citizen scientists who have taken the time to share their sightings with us; by piecing all of this information together we will have a better picture of the state of polecats in Britain by the end of the survey (December 2025).
We've had well over 300 sightings submitted to us from members of the public, mainly through our website's Report a Sighting page. As anticipated, road kill sightings were more common in the first few months of the year, but live sightings have become more common in the summer months. We're also getting many more sightings from parts of the country that previously had very few polecat sightings, such as counties in the far south west like Cornwall.
In six month's time, December 2024 will bring us to the halfway point of our national survey. At this point we will share some information about how the survey is going, and identify areas we need more sightings in. Currently, we have much fewer sightings from Wales compared to England.
Happy polecat spotting!
